A New Clip From NASA’s Juno Probe Lets You ‘Listen’ to Jupiter’s Moon

Using data collected from 32 orbits.

A New Clip From NASA’s Juno Probe Lets You ‘Listen’ to Jupiter’s Moon

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Last October, we brought you news of the sounds of Mars delivered through NASA’s InSight ears. Listening to this noise was akin to taking a trip to space. Now, you can listen to Jupiter’s moon.

Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio has released a 50-second audio track generated from NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter, according to Phys.org. More specifically, the sounds were recorded on the ship’s close flyby of the Jovian moon Ganymede on June 7, 2021. 

“This soundtrack is just wild enough to make you feel as if you were riding along as Juno sails past Ganymede for the first time in more than two decades,” Bolton told Phys.org. “If you listen closely, you can hear the abrupt change to higher frequencies around the midpoint of the recording, which represents entry into a different region in Ganymede’s magnetosphere.”

Juno boasts a Waves instrument, which tunes in to electric and magnetic radio waves originating from Jupiter’s magnetosphere. Researchers collected that data and then shifted its frequency to transform it into an audible audio track.

The end result is a soundtrack that sounds like wind blowing along with some robot-like beeps. Could it indicate life on or near the moon? Well, unlikely. No such word was given from the investigators on the project but past studies have revealed that life is likely to be present on Jupiter.

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Last July, researchers analyzing data from planets in the solar system discovered that the clouds of Jupiter possess the required water activity to, in theory, support life. Analyzing data collected by the Galileo mission at altitudes between 26 and 42 miles (42 and 68 kilometers) above the gas giant’s surface, the researchers found that a layer of the planet’s clouds does meet the water requirements for life. Could there be life on the planet and, if so, could we have actually heard it?

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Loukia Papadopoulos <p>Loukia Papadopoulos is a journalist, writer, and editor with previous experience with the United Nations Momentum for Change, Leo Burnett and Al Arabiya English. She holds a D.E.C. in Pure and Applied Sciences from Marianopolis College, a B.A. in Communications and an M.Sc. in Geography, Urban and Environmental Studies from Concordia University.</p>